HIMALAYAN CULTIVATION.

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large scale. The potato, introduced from England, is a favouritecrop, and covers many sites formerly under forest

The hillman clears his potato ground by burning a ring Clearing around the stems of the great trees, and then lays out the sideof the mountain into terraces. After a few years the bark andleaves drop off the branches, and the forest stands bleachedand ruined. Some of the trees rot on the ground, like giantsfallen in confused flight; others still remain upright, with whitetrunks and skeleton arms. In the end, the rank green potatocrop marks the spot where a forest has been slain and buried.

Several of the ruder hill tribes follow an even more wastefulmode of tillage. Destitute of either ploughs or oxen, theyburn down the jungle, and exhaust the soil by a quick succes-sion of crops, raised by the hoe. In a year or two the wholesettlement moves off to a fresh patch of jungle, which theyclear and exhaust, and then desert in like manner.

Rice is only grown in the Himalayas on ground which has Irrigation an unfailing command of water—particularly in the damp hot and mill-valleys between the successive ranges that roll upwards intothe interior. The hillmen practise an ingenious system ofirrigation, according to which the slopes are laid out in terraces,and the streams are diverted to a great distance by successiveparallel channels along the mountain-side. They also utilizetheir water-power for mill purposes. Some of them are ignorantof cog-wheels for converting the vertical movement of the mill-wheel into the horizontal movement required for the grinding-stone. They therefore place their mill-wheel flat instead ofupright, and lead the water so as to dash with great force onthe horizontal paddles. A horizontal rotary movement is thusobtained, and conveyed direct by the axle to the millstoneabove.

The chief saleable products of the Himalayas are timber, Himalayan charcoal, barley, millets, potatoes, other vegetables, honey,jungle products, borax, and several kinds of inferior gems.

Strings of ponies and mules straggle with their burdens alongthe narrow pathways, which are at many places mere ledgescut out of the precipice. The hillmen and their hard-workingwives load themselves also with pine stems and conical basketsof grain. The yak-cow and robust mountain sheep are thefavourite beasts of burden in the inner ranges. The little yak-cow, whose bushy tail was manufactured in Europe into lace,patiently toils up the steepest gorges with a heavy burden onher back. The sheep, laden with bags of borax, are driven tomarts on the outer ranges near the plains, where they are